Dockett: Now is time to improve selves, chemistry

By Adam Green | April 16, 2012 at 9:53 pmUPDATED: April 16, 2012 at 11:16 pm

TEMPE, Ariz. — For Darnell Dockett, the chance to get
together with his
teammates for workouts is a chance to get better.

“The biggest thing for us right now is to try to build
some
chemistry in this offseason,” Dockett said after working
out
at the team’s facility Monday. “Football is going to come
regardless, but if we don’t have chemistry it really won’t
mean nothing.

“Each day is very important to us, whether we sit in the
locker room for an hour and talk before, after, or go get
something to eat; I think that’s the biggest thing to us
is
the communication and just developing a friendship with a
lot of new guys and a lot of old guys.”

One of the team’s leaders, Dockett is about to enter his
ninth NFL season — all with the Cardinals — and he does
so with confidence that the team’s defense can build off
the success it had in 2011.

“I think we kind of got the concepts of what our coach was
trying to do for us last year,” he said. “Are we at where
we need to be? No, not by far. But we are still learning
it, and with a year under our belt seeing the good things
that can happen is huge for us.”

So, he said, now is about just getting in shape and
learning as they go.

“We’re going to be a defense that’s very exciting this
year,” he said, adding that the big thing will be just
staying healthy and being stronger than their opponents.

That process, in a way, started Monday.

“The divisions that we play this year are much tougher so
we’ve got to really take a counter to that and really
give it extra effort.”